NTDLL.DLL Crashing to desktop frequently.

[FaceMelter11]

Hi,

My LOTRO client crashes to desktop after anywhere from 1 to 2 hours active. The Windows event log claims the culprit is ntdll.dll. I have found many ancient threads about crashes caused by this and none of the solutions apply to me. For example:

It seems this used to be very common on 32bit Windows, but I am on 64bit.
There was a problem with Creative soundcard drivers, which I do not have.
It could be a faulty memory issue, but I have run diagnostics and found no errors.
It may have been a graphics driver issue, but I am up to date.

My PC specifications:

Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Intel i5 7600K
Gigabyte Z270x Ultra Gaming MOBO
16GB DDR4
EVGA GTX 1060 6gb

Game is installed on a PNY CS1311 240gb SSD

I have seemingly exhausted all of my options, so I finally have come here. Anybody who tries to help has my gratitude.

[Polymachos]

Is there any readable text written in the Events, that identifies something more than just the ntdll?
Can you disable some of the programs or services in the background? Maybe they are getting in the way.
Newest drivers doesn't always mean best drivers, especially when it comes to NVidia drivers. Look at the number *after* the period. The higher it is, the better.
Try to set the Texture Cache Size in the advanced graphics options to ten percent, or other values. It might make a difference.
Try to set the Graphics Hardware Level in the normal graphic options section to another version of DirectX (and maybe back) to see if that makes a difference.
Did you install DirectX 9.0c? It is old, but the game is old, too.

Just a few ideas.


Greetings, Polymachos

[FaceMelter11]

Hey Polymachos, thanks for the reply.

The first of your suggestions that I tried was reducing the texture cache size setting to 10%, the game stayed open for a considerable amount longer but still inevitably crashed, producing the following message in the event viewer:

Faulting application name: lotroclient.exe, version: 2001.58.5799.4116, time stamp: 0x58fa9af4
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.14393.479, time stamp: 0x58256ca0
Exception code: 0xc0000017
Fault offset: 0x000cd686
Faulting process id: 0x1d98
Faulting application start time: 0x01d2c217b527d2e5
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\SteamLibrary\steamapps\c ommon\Lord of the Rings Online\lotroclient.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: bcd79ef4-5dee-46bf-a3ea-f6032f45678d
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

I'll attempt some of the other fixes tomorrow when I have more time.

[Rieven]

I am having the exact same issue. My game crashes several times in each session, usually between 1 to 2 hours of play. What's odd, is that I can almost always tell when it's about to happen. It appears that I get some odd glitches in game, like things slowing down a little, though my FPS remains the same.

Here are my system specs and the log error info:

Processor: AMD FX 8350 Eight-Core Processor
RAM: 32GB
OS: Win 10 Pro (all fully updated)
GFX: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 (driver up to date)

Game is installed on an SSD

Event viewer info for past 3 crashes:

4/30/2017 11:22:49 AM:
Faulting application name: lotroclient.exe, version: 2001.58.5799.4116, time stamp: 0x58fa9af4
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.14393.479, time stamp: 0x58256ca0
Exception code: 0xc0000017
Fault offset: 0x000cd686
Faulting process id: 0x1fd0
Faulting application start time: 0x01d2c1ccfffe5bbd
Faulting application path: F:\The Lord of the Rings Online\lotroclient.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: 80f5e3b4-41d2-447e-bda2-6e92b58894bc
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:


4/30/2017 1:06:08 PM:
Faulting application name: lotroclient.exe, version: 2001.58.5799.4116, time stamp: 0x58fa9af4
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.14393.479, time stamp: 0x58256ca0
Exception code: 0xc0000017
Fault offset: 0x000cd686
Faulting process id: 0x27dc
Faulting application start time: 0x01d2c1ded605a73f
Faulting application path: F:\The Lord of the Rings Online\lotroclient.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: cf3f3e7d-7300-4817-87b2-c057184a2b83
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:


4/30/2017 2:27:15 PM:
Faulting application name: lotroclient.exe, version: 2001.58.5799.4116, time stamp: 0x58fa9af4
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.14393.479, time stamp: 0x58256ca0
Exception code: 0xc0000017
Fault offset: 0x000cd686
Faulting process id: 0x275c
Faulting application start time: 0x01d2c1ed49c8b784
Faulting application path: F:\The Lord of the Rings Online\lotroclient.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: 18f24cd8-36ea-4476-a721-0a58e4485ae1
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

[FaceMelter11]

That is quite interesting. There have been two instances for me lately where I have had odd graphical glitches in game and crashed shortly after. Once I was in Minas Tirith and a wall was completely missing and I could see through the map and the game crashed on my next load screen, another was I was in Snowbourn and none of the stone wall were visible, just shadows in their places.

My game has crashed many more times than these two occurrences, so I figured it had nothing to do with it, but it sounds like after reading your post that they may be connected. Perhaps on my other crashes there HAVE been some graphical loading problems and I've just not noticed.

[Rieven]

Interesting. We both have GTX cards, so i'm wondering if it's something to do with those drivers. I would assume if that's the case though, that a lot more people would be complaining about it. I may try completely uninstalling my video drivers, and installing from fresh, see if that makes any difference at all.

[FaceMelter11]

Update: Since the game most often crashes immediately after a load screen for me, I attempted to hit as many load screens as possible in a short time.

I used all of my travel skills upon login and took a couple of swift travels and was able to crash the game in only 5 minutes. Same error as always. Additionally, here is what my memory usage was at the moment of the crash.

Faulting application name: lotroclient.exe, version: 2001.58.5799.4116, time stamp: 0x58fa9af4
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.14393.479, time stamp: 0x58256ca0
Exception code: 0xc0000017
Fault offset: 0x000cd686
Faulting process id: 0x27b8
Faulting application start time: 0x01d2c2a79be0ac9f
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\SteamLibrary\steamapps\c ommon\Lord of the Rings Online\lotroclient.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: ebc22c70-782d-402d-9f18-cc1a6008c487
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:



edit: forgot to add picture

[Yarbro]

That is your total usage, not what LOTRO is using.

Very few mentions of OS, are you all on Win10?? I am betting it is related to the other various Win10 issues; have you disabled the "Game mode"?? Another thread points to this setting causing issues with LOTRO.

[Rieven]

We had both listed our OS in our initial posts:

I am running Windows 10 professional (64bit) and FaceMelter is using Windows 10 Home (64-bit).

Looking at my settings, my version of Windows 10 doesn't have the Game Mode feature.

[Polymachos]

Lotro is still a 32bit game, and cannot use more than 2.4 something Gigabyte of memory, no matter what the respective machine may have. And when it is coming close to this amount (like in overloaded Minas Tirith or after having to load lots of various surroundings) it gets into trouble and crashes. Currently the tendency to crash has risen again; in spite of the coding that SSG implemented repeatedly to keep the behavior of the client somewhat reliable. Only yesterday my character was logged out while riding along the main road of the war-stead (Far Anorien), and when I tried to relog, an error occurred, and I had to relog again, with a rollback by ten minutes, and right in the face of an invisible boss that I had been fighting said 10 minutes before... of course I ended up in the rez circle.

The driver that I am using is 378.66, which doesn't mean that it will warrant a better performance than yours, even if the newer drivers are still unstable, compared to older ones. The only way to avoid these crashes, is to monitor the memory that lotroclient.exe is using (eg via the task manager) and if you have the feeling that its size has grown too much, log out to reduce the load. I know that this cannot be called a solution, but it is the only thing I can advise. The game is old, and at the upper limit of its performance already, so there is little hope to get it fixed so well that it will run as solid as a rock.


Greetings, Polymachos

[FaceMelter11]

Lotro is still a 32bit game, and cannot use more than 2.4 something Gigabyte of memory, no matter what the respective machine may have. And when it is coming close to this amount (like in overloaded Minas Tirith or after having to load lots of various surroundings) it gets into trouble and crashes. Currently the tendency to crash has risen again; in spite of the coding that SSG implemented repeatedly to keep the behavior of the client somewhat reliable. Only yesterday my character was logged out while riding along the main road of the war-stead (Far Anorien), and when I tried to relog, an error occurred, and I had to relog again, with a rollback by ten minutes, and right in the face of an invisible boss that I had been fighting said 10 minutes before... of course I ended up in the rez circle.

The driver that I am using is 378.66, which doesn't mean that it will warrant a better performance than yours, even if the newer drivers are still unstable, compared to older ones. The only way to avoid these crashes, is to monitor the memory that lotroclient.exe is using (eg via the task manager) and if you have the feeling that its size has grown too much, log out to reduce the load. I know that this cannot be called a solution, but it is the only thing I can advise. The game is old, and at the upper limit of its performance already, so there is little hope to get it fixed so well that it will run as solid as a rock.


Greetings, Polymachos

Hey Poly, so what happens when they release the updated character models they teased? Do I get to play for 10 minutes at a time in between crashes?

Is my only real recourse lowering my graphics settings to extend my playtime?

This is all very disappointing.

[Rieven]

I'm guessing the sheer lack of posts about this mean it's not a major issue at all. I just wish I had some direction in order to troubleshoot it. I have a guildie that has a very similar hardware setup to me, running the exact same OS, and he never crashes. It's just very frustrating as it's making the game a pain to play.

[martyself]

After being inactive for a couple years, I've been playing this past week, and experiencing similar crashes after playing for a chunk of time (I haven't tracked it closely, so I'll refrain from any time approximations). I have the game installed and running through Steam, which neither of you mentioned from what I saw. I was debating installing it without Steam, but if you guys are already playing that way, it seems that's not worth the effort.


I run Win 10, 64-bit (Creator Update hasn't hit my system yet)
AMD FX-8350 CPU
16GB RAM
nVidia GTX 960

I have the texture cache size maxed, as I thought that was the better setting when you had an ample amount of VRAM. Did I misunderstand?

I don't notice any glitches pre-crash. Every time with only one exception, the crash has occurred during a load screen. The FPS is choppy, but no more than what I remember due to the issues of a 10 year old MMO. I do run a chunk of plugins, which probably doesn't help anything if it's a memory overload issue.

Perhaps if I remember, I'll check my event viewer next time and add those details to the thread.

- Ril

[Yarbro]

We had both listed our OS in our initial posts:

I am running Windows 10 professional (64bit) and FaceMelter is using Windows 10 Home (64-bit).

Looking at my settings, my version of Windows 10 doesn't have the Game Mode feature.

Sorry, I missed that, (rather tired), but so far you all have Win10 in common, even if different versions.

I wont touch Win10, so cannot suggest specifics, but are there any compatibility modes as per Win7, and can you set affinity to certain cores and not others??

If I remember tomorrow, I will run my Hunter out to MT and look at how much RAM LOTRO is using; I dont play him much, as I prefer the lower level content, but on the few occaisions I have been there - other than a massive FPS slowdown, I didnt have any crashes.

[Yarbro]

Just been doing bit of digging on the dll; there are reported issues with it crashing when trying to access long file locations (over 260 characters in length).

Now I havent delved into the LOTRO game engine - and to be honest there shouldnt be any that length (bad practise); but it might be worth moving LOTRO and any gfx driver folders to the root of the OS drive, this will reduce the file location string by about 15-30 characters.

First reports from September last year suggest the issue started with the Anniversary update ( build 1607); and that as of the end of March this year, M$ were still saying "wait" for a fix.

Some people are saying it has only affected files written AFTER the Win10 update, long name files from prior to this still work fine; so it might be a gfx driver or LOTRO update pushed something over the 260 limit.

No guarantees, but worth a try.

[FaceMelter11]

As far as memory goes, I switched my settings to DirectX 9 and lowered texture and Model quality from Ultra to High. This has reduced memory consumption greatly and the game is far more stable. Not optimal though obviously, I didn't just buy a new pc to not max out a 10 year old game!

[Eloriena]

Same Crash Report on Windows 7 Professional 64bit, i5, Geforce GTX 680, 8GB RAM and it seems that this problem is at least known or happened now and then since 2012: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...ll-it-be-fixed

Hope there will be another solution than reducing graphic quality soon.

[Esamfast]

Same here!

Machine specs:

Intel Xeon 1650v0
Asus Rampage IV
Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB
24 GB Ram
Windows 10 64bit Pro

Since MT i constantly crash to desktop in every single loading screen. Only setting up ultra low graphic quality gives me a little break from the crashes. It's so frustrating!

Btw. also older graphic driver gives me no solution!

[Aranaphalion]

Greetings,

Just want to add my voice to the choir.

Same error happens to me several times a day as well.

I have basically a brand new system (less than a month old).

My specs are:

CPU: I7-7700K
GFX: ASUS Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti FE
RAM: 16 GB
OS: Windows 10 64 bit Home with Creator's Update

I run the game on Ultra settings (which is probably maxed out everything).

After an almost two year hiatus I started to play again since my old system could not handle the load anymore with the recent updates. Performance was not very good but I never had any crashes at least.

When playing on the landscape with only few or no loading screens I can play for a long time without any troubles. But right now I am questing in Minas Tirith and there is a lot of zoning and loading screens and there I get the error sometimes within minutes again.

I mean, the game is reloaded pretty quickly again but it kills immersion quite a bit never the less.

Hope there will be a fix or work around for it soon.

P.S. Also noticing when riding on my warsteed that there are suddenly drastic FPS drops happening which cause micro lags and jitter in the movements, but that might be rather a server performance issue.

[Rieven]

I'm going to suggest that everyone of us having this issue go ahead and submit a support ticket, since this post doesn't seem to be getting any traction and more and more seem to be having the issue.

[arowl]

Same issue here, however I have an AMD Radeon R9 200 series card, 17.5.1 driver. Windows 10 home x64.

Faulting application name: lotroclient.exe, version: 2001.58.5799.4116, time stamp: 0x58fa9af4
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.15063.0, time stamp: 0xa82cc161
Exception code: 0xc0000017
Fault offset: 0x000d3681
Faulting process id: 0xb18
Faulting application start time: 0x01d2cb58348fe611
Faulting application path: G:\Program Files (x86)\Turbine\The Lord of the Rings Online\lotroclient.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: 5de5ba67-bcae-4875-8e68-bbbb9c87338c
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

[Rieven]

I haven't had any update to my support ticket in 9 days, so I'm not holding out any hope to a solution.

[Yarbro]

I haven't had any update to my support ticket in 9 days, so I'm not holding out any hope to a solution.

Last few tickets I have submitted took 10-12 days to get even a reply - so dont give up hope.

Alternatively, install Win7 as a second OS and boot to that when you want to play LOTRO.

[FaceMelter11]

A brief update: Since we know the issue is the result of the game being 32bit, and that the crash occurs when the game hits somewhere around 2.5gigs of memory, I tried to figure out the highest graphical fidelity I could maintain while eliminating the crashes.

To stay under the crash threshold even after extended sessions, I only had to modify 4 options:

I switched from DirectX 11 to DirectX9 (note that this switch on its own disables a few things like water physics and some near useless shadow effect)
I switched Model Detail from Ultra down to Very High
I switched Texture detail from Very High to High
I unchecked Player Mesh Combining

All other settings remain on maximum. My memory usage now peaks at just under 2.1gigs and no longer crashes while still looking near the best the game offers.

[Rieven]

What is a little odd for me, is since I stopped playing my Hunter and am now playing my Rune Keeper, I haven't crashed once. Of course, without having the travel skills, I have a ton less loading screens and I'm not in Minas Tirith yet. So i think that also offers some further proof, that the crashing has something to do with loading screens.